These fares will differ depending on which Uber vehicle option you select. For example, an UberBLACK will cost much more than a simple UberX.

How is an Uber base fare calculated?

According to a recent answer on Quora, “Uber fares are primarily calculated based on distance and duration. There is a ‘Base Fare’ that is charged for every ride (essentially a fee to jump in the car).”

The Base Fare and the variable portion based on distance and duration both vary city to city. You will need to check your city at Uber’s City Listings.

The takeaway: The Uber base fare will depend on the service you’re using, and the city you’re in.

What is the Uber Safe Ride fee?

The Safe Ride fee is an initiative Uber introduced in 2014, which offsets the cost of Uber driver background checks, vehicle inspections, and insurance premiums. This fee is paid by riders and starts at $1 per ride, but some cities have seen the fee as high as $2.50.

What is the booking fee for Uber?

The Uber booking fee is another name for the Safe Ride Fee, which is a separate fee added to each ride that a passenger takes to support the safety initiative for riders and drivers.

What type of payment does Uber take?

Uber accepts most large forms of payment.

Most major credit cards

PayPal

Apple Pay

American Express points

Gift cards and vouchers

Cash

Is Uber profitable?

Uber may or may not be profitable to a driver, depending on which service they drive for and what city they drive in. For example, an UberBLACK driver in New York City will obviously make much more than an UberX driver in Iowa.

To an extent, driving is profitable. The rates may not be the best at all times, so drivers are turning to the sign-up bonuses, claiming the bonus, then quitting after pocketing the cash. That’s an issue of its own, so you can read more about that in our separate post.

Tip: Uber has nice incentives for drivers, but so does Lyft. As the two battle for their share of both drivers and riders, they are continually outdoing each other with promotions. If you’re looking for some extra love for your paycheck, don’t miss claiming your onboarding bonus for new Lyft drivers.

For a full breakdown, check out our latest Uber driver income breakdown, in which we’ve outlined the income and expenses for an Uber driver in much greater detail.

How much does Uber pay their drivers?

On average, Uber pays their drivers 75 percent of whatever the total fare is for a given ride, after deducting a “rider fee.” Uber takes 25 percent of everything a driver makes.

As a note, a driver keeps 75 percent of their total ride fares, net. This means before expenses. In reality, drivers can earn much less than they think after they pay expenses such as car washes, gas, insurance, and more.

Upfront Pricing

Now that you understand the factors that go into pricing an Uber ride, it’s important to take a look at how that data is used to calculate a fare.

Last summer, Uber rolled out a new form of pricing called upfront pricing that was supposed to be a game changer for drivers. However, it led to a lot of pushback from drivers and has turned out to actually overcharge riders by a lot.

QZ.com describes the pricing as “the total upfront fares paid by riders were that much higher than the fares used to calculate driver pay. The company lost money overall on UberPool, its carpooling service, but more than made it up by overcharging customers who booked trips on UberX and its other private ride options.”

In short, the upfront pricing model allows Uber riders to see their ride costs before they request the ride, and it ensures that riders aren’t grossly overcharged once the ride is complete.

Basically, what you see is what you get.

There are a few downsides to this model, though.

First, it’s a little more difficult to see when SURGE is in effect, and you might pay more for your ride without fully realizing it. Unlike the big bold notification that used to pop up, this pricing system doesn’t give much warning that the price is surging.

Second, drivers make less than expected. Budget-friendly riders will simply wait till SURGE is over, leading to frustrated drivers that may quit or lower their quality of service as a result.

Uber Upfront Pricing Lawsuit

While Uber’s Upfront Pricing is great for some riders, it has been entangled in a large web of controversy. This escalated to a high-profile lawsuit against the company.

The center of the lawsuit basically revolves around the fact that Uber allegedly calculates two prices for a given fare: One charged to the passenger, and one paid to the driver.

If there is a difference, the lawsuit accuses Uber of being able to pocket the difference.

I personally can see both sides of the argument, so for the sake of this post, I won’t get into any more details. If you’d like to learn more you can certainly look it up.

Lyft Upfront Pricing

Like Uber, Lyft also provides passengers with an Upfront Pricing option to simplify the cost of a ride before it’s even taken.

Once a pickup location and destination have been entered, the app will show a total ride cost that you’ll be charged.

The Lyft Upfront Pricing total includes all expenses:

Fees

Taxes

Tolls

Prime Time

Any applicable promotions

Uber Fare Estimate

There’s definitely a lot that goes into calculating an Uber rate, but luckily for riders, there are tools that do the heavy lifting.

There are two ways to get an Uber cost estimate: use the Uber app or use a third-party Uber calculator.

Uber App Price Estimate

If you want to estimate an Uber fare using the Uber app, there are a few steps involved.

Open the Uber app

Input the destination you’d like to end up at

Verify your pickup location on the map

Once entered and verified, you’ll see a list of vehicle options populate

Tap the one you want an estimate for, and a fare estimate will pop up

This estimate is a good breakdown of the rates themselves, but it’s not as simple as it used to be. That’s where third-party calculators come in.

Uber Calculator Estimate

Using a third-party Uber estimator that taps the official API is probably one of the easiest ways to get a ride estimate before you request a ride.

Sample Uber Fares

How much does Uber cost in Denver?

In this case, we’ll use Denver and price two fares: an UberX fare and an UberSUV fare. In both, we’ll be going from Coors Field to Mile High Wine Tours in Denver, a distance of 2.61 miles.

Sample UberX Fare

Using the city-based pricing tool above, we get the following data for an UberX fare:

Seat Capacity

4

Base Fare

$0.75

Per Minute

$0.13

Per Mile

$1.00

Cancellation Fee

$5.00

Booking Fee

$2.45

Minimum Fare

$7.45

Sample UberBLACK Fare

Likewise, UberBLACK costs a little more:

Seat Capacity

$4.00

Base Fare

$7.00

Per Minute

$0.35

Per Mile

$3.20

Cancellation Fee

$10.00

Minimum Fare

$7.45

Now let’s take that data and plug it into the Uber calculator widget.

As you can see, the cost of an UberX ride barely makes it past the minimum rate, while the cost of an UberSUV is much more. You’ll also notice the estimated time of arrival is longer for the SUV.

You can expect this type of difference regardless of which city you request a ride in. There are less high-end vehicles on the road, and they cost more to buy and operate, hence the difference between the two.

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